Our Plenary Sessions will offer world-class keynote speakers from different countries and with very interesting topics, from and outside ISPRS community. Their list will be publicized on the Congress web page.
The plenary meetings are the only sessions that do not run in parallel with the other ones.

Technical Sessions are the main core of the Scientific Program of the Congress. They correspond to a wide range of topics, which are incorporated in the present orientations of the five ISPRS Technical Commissions (TC) and all their Working Groups (WGs). They are presented in details on the ISPRS website. Each Technical Commission will have its specific track every day, running in parallel with the other ones and following the same time schedule. The track is composed of technical sessions and poster sessions. All of these sessions form, together with the Thematic Sessions (see below), the scientific production in the ISPRS branches since the previous ISPRS Congress. Acceptance/rejection decision for papers in the Scientific commission track will be decided by the Technical Commission it falls into.

Since 2016, new developments and fields have emerged in many branches of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Sciences. A specific track called Thematic track, running in parallel with the five Technical commission tracks is therefore dedicated to new topics and application fields. It aims to favor emerging subjects and cross-fertilization. Therefore, Thematic sessions will present bridging themes between/among WGs or will be formed from excellent new topics not covered by the WG ones. The floor is given to everybody to propose special sessions. Papers submitted to these sessions will be integrated into the same review process than papers dedicated to technical sessions.

A specific track addresses the interactions between science, public organizations, industry and decision-makers on hot topics of the geospatial community. Each forum is a discussion meeting at the interface between science and society on topics for which the photogrammetry and remote sensing community (ISPRS) can enlighten political and industrial decision making. It is not supposed to present scientific innovation (which is the scope of the sessions organized by the ISPRS commissions) but to address the impact of this innovation and the role our community could play in this changing context for «building a better future together » by providing collective visions and/or roadmaps. Global mapping and resource or climate change monitoring, smart cities, autonomous navigation, digital globes and geo-platforms, spatial data infrastructures, open science/source/data, cultural heritage etc. will be the subject of intense and inspiring presentations and panel discussions mixing experts from various levels and communities.

The technology track will be devoted to the presentations of latest technologies, products and services. During the industrial exhibition, this track will allow sponsors and exhibitors that are ISPRS Sustaining Members to give oral presentations on their latest technological developments. After the industrial exhibition, the technology track will be focused on oral presentations of scientific technologies, products, services and platforms by academic ISPRS Sustaining Members. Demonstrations will also be promoted.

Three days will be dedicated to sessions organized by the ISPRS Student Consortium. The main purpose of the Consortium is to link students, young researchers, and professionals in different countries and provide a platform for exchange of information, to organize student-specific events and other actions that integrate youth more effectively into ISPRS. These sessions focus on graduate, master and PhD students around oral and interactive sessions, speed dating activities with industry and academia, in additional to the Summer School.
All papers will go through the regular review process.

The week focuses on how photogrammetry, remote sensing, and spatial information sciences contribute to science and society, such as public policies and main aspects of life and work today. It exhibits how disruptive technologies (sensors and methods) shape and improve the current landscape, how it creates new application fields and opportunities for public and private sectors, as well as for their interactions.
The Congress welcomes all papers bringing new achievements, in terms of methods, experiments, and applicative fields, that help shifting the present level of knowledge. The Congress exceptional value comes from the fact it exhibits the interdisciplinarity of science today and the ubiquity of the application of sensing, whatever the platform (from the satellite to the citizen).
The attendees will obtain up-to-date information about the latest developments in photogrammetry, remote sensing, and spatial information sciences. They will have the opportunity to make new contacts, exchange ideas with colleagues, discover new fields and identify future trends in multiple domains.
The Program over seven days will be carefully tailored so as to ensure a smooth planning and to fulfil the expectations of all attendees, would they be interested in diving into one main topic or in having a glimpse of the main achievements in all domains.

The committee is led by the chair of ISAC. TC fellows are scientific advisors for TCP (similarly to the 2016 Congress).
Five programs are in practice constructed in parallel:
– The Scientific tracks, composed of the Technical and Special Sessions;
– The Youth Forum track, built by the ISPRS Student Consortium;
– The Fora track, that will be fed with some papers from the Scientific Tracks;
– The innovation forum, that will not include scientific papers and will leave room for more diverse activities (solvathon, hackaton, mapathon, etc.);
– The Industrial track, built by the International Industrial Advisory Committee (I2AC), that is likely to be fed with some papers from the Scientific Tracks if they complement the existing presentations.

The six scientific tracks (five for the five TC and one for Special Sessions) include the large majority of all accepted papers. The International Scientific Committee decides whether papers go to:
– Long oral: 15-minutes presentation;
– Short oral: 10-minutes presentation;
– Spotlight: a 5-minute spotlight presentation, pre-recorded.
All presenters are encouraged to present a poster to maximize impact and the quality of discussion. Each session will consist of several long and short oral sessions with a unifying theme.

Such a decision is based both on the scientific excellence of the paper (review scores, feedback from Area Chairs and TCP) and its attractiveness (promotion of a novel or hot topic, particular application field, interdisciplinarity, etc.). Therefore, there is no direct link between papers published in the Annals and Archives and presentation in Oral and interaction sessions, respectively.
The submission of a short video explaining the method and showcasing the main results with the initial blind paper and/or the camera-ready version is highly encouraged for authors interesting in long and short oral sessions.